From running on the playground to running with purpose, eighth grader Ava Johnson capped an impressive debut season for Community Christian School at the inaugural North Carolina Christian Athletic Association cross-country championships Oct. 24 in Greenville.
In her first year running, Johnson placed second overall out of 39 girls, crossing the finish line of the 5-kilometer (3.1 mile) race in 24 minutes, 55 seconds.That was a bit off the pace of girls champion Leighton Overall of Gramercy Christian in 24:26, but for Johnson, it was more about how she finished.
Throughout the course at North Recreational Complex, Johnson was relentlessly pushed by the Goldsboro Faith Christian pair of Brooke Finney and Payten Campbell. CCS coach Joe Strange knew it was only a matter of time before Johnson would have to pull away.
“I told her, ‘Hey, look, you’ve got to take off at this point. You’ve got to separate yourself,’” Strange recalled, “because there were a few girls that were in around her at that time just wearing her down. And you know, whenever you’ve got two girls that are working against one, they’re going to wear her down a good bit.”
Instead, Johnson summoned the will to kick into high gear and she did just that. With Finney literally on her heels, Johnson sprinted across the finish line, a second ahead of Finney.
“It was really tough at the end,” Johnson said. “I felt like giving up but I had to push through and persevere and it was tough. I felt really tired, but I know I had to push for my team and for myself to prove to myself that I can do it.”
Strange marveled at Johnson’s determination down the stretch.
“To watch her kick and to grit her teeth and to have this girl on her and it be a foot race,” Strange said. “I mean, between those two girls, watching that determination she had given all that she had and tried to give even more.”
But it didn’t surprise the veteran coach and runner. Johnson had never run competitively until this year but “she’s got that champion mindset in that she wants to better herself,” Strange said..
Johnson knew she was fast and one of her former physical education teachers at CCS had noticed her speed as well. But cross-country wasn’t P.E. It was more than three miles of running and Johnson quickly acclimated to Strange’s workouts.
“What I try to get these guys to do is think outside themselves as well,” Strange said.
He brought up a home meet during the season in which a runner from one of the other schools was having a hard time on the course.
“There was a kid who was struggling like nobody’s business. I mean, he was struggling struggling,” Strange said. “We’ve got a three-lap course here. It’s a mile long. … I didn’t think he was going to finish. We came to our half-mile point, where we had a half-mile left, and I told a few of these guys to go run with him. There was no argument or anything; they just ran out and finished with him.”
Strange said that Johnson demonstrated championship tendencies in more ways that one.
“So I’m proud of her for finishing second, but I would say out of those two things, she gave all she had, she understood, for her team,” he said, “but for her to look outside herself that day was probably just as big. I try to teach these guys to be champions, not just win championships, but to be champions — and champions for Christ. I think that’s huge.”
Now that Johnson’s first season as a cross-country runner is over, she isn’t done running. She said she might run in road races over the offseason and then there’s the possibility of track at CCS in the spring. She’s already learned one valuable lesson from running.
“If you put your mind to it, you can really accomplish something,” she said.
CYCLONES PLACE HIGH
Johnson helped the CCS girls to an overall third-place finish out of five teams with score, based on each’s top three finishers. Gramercy Christian of Newport won the NCCAA girls title with 14 points while Faith was second with 21, followed by CCS (25), Christ Covenant (35) and New Bern Christian (42).
Barrett Godwin was next for CCS, finishing 13th in 27:30 while Bella Edwards accounted for the Cyclones’ other points with an 18th-place finish in 28:26.
Led by Roy Henderson and Caleb Bush, the CCS boys team was the runner-up with 29 points, 23 off the winning pace of Faith Christian, which had the first five finishers.
Henderson was eighth overall in 22:00.9, just ahead of Bush in ninth in 22:03. Tanner Pierce took 18th place out of 49 runners with a time of 22:58 to account for the final CCS score.
Faith’s Chandler Robertson cruised to the boys win with a time of 19:13, the only sub-20-minute time on the day.
Johnson, Godwin and Henderson were named to the all-conference team.